There’s high adventure a half mile from downtown Asheville at the Crowne Plaza Tennis and Golf Resort. On a swath of 125 acres, bordered by highways and across the French Broad River from downtown, the resort is home to the city’s only urban zip line and an adventure park.
Two years ago, Asheville resident Jeff Greiner, whose family has long been in the river rafting business, turned the front nine of the resort’s 18-hole golf course into a series of 10 zip lines that make use of 150-year-old white oak trees and massive tulip poplars. The trees were handled with care as platforms were built; an arborist monitors their health.
The zip line is a short walk from the Crowne Plaza, making it a natural for an afternoon of team building, especially as resort guests are offered discounts.
The day can end with meeting attendees zipping along on side-by-side zip lines that race down from the course’s tower to a platform that steps from the hotel’s meeting rooms.
Greiner’s newest offering, Treetops Adventure Park, is an aerial obstacle course in a cluster of trees a few yards from the start of the zip line tour. It has four levels, each of increasing height and challenge. From the ground, the park looks like the Swiss Family Robinson hooked up with a band of spiders. Along the aerial routes are some 50 challenges — climbing a rope net or zipping through the trees in an airborne kayak. Picnic tables below allow those who don’t go in for aerial tricks to watch friends and family that do. Both facilities are open to the public.
www.wildwaterrafting.com
www.ashevilletreetopsadventurepark.com
